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Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs SonicWall NSa comparison

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Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Sep 16, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

ROI

Sentiment score
5.6
Companies report high ROI with Fortinet FortiGate due to cost-effectiveness, security, performance, and ease of management.
Sentiment score
8.2
Fortinet FortiGate-VM enhances network stability and security, offering cost savings and scalability, though ROI perceptions vary among users.
Sentiment score
4.8
Businesses praised SonicWall NSa for cost-effectiveness, security enhancements, operational savings, and improved efficiency, delivering strong long-term returns.
Clients are now comfortable and not wasting productive hours on IT support.
The automation part is giving us a cost benefit and speed; we can react faster.
It's a very useful tool to mitigate and protect your enterprise.
I observed a fifty to sixty percent reduction in operational costs after migrating to FortiGate VM.
They have a platform that organizes their networks and access effectively.
We haven't used MPLS for over five years now, and it was extremely beneficial to see the changes from MPLS to SD-WAN using Fortinet FortiGate.
 

Customer Service

Sentiment score
6.4
Fortinet FortiGate's service is praised for good documentation but receives mixed feedback on technical support speed and effectiveness.
Sentiment score
6.6
Fortinet FortiGate-VM support is praised for responsiveness but faces criticism for response times, expertise, and regional consistency.
Sentiment score
8.5
SonicWall NSa's customer service is efficient and knowledgeable despite occasional slow response times and reliance on partners.
They offer very accurate solutions.
The quick resolution of issues with Fortinet FortiGate is due to the support of the company and the fact that the equipment is easy to work with.
I would rate the technical support for Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
The speed of Fortinet's technical support is significantly faster compared to Palo Alto.
Their support is helpful and effective.
The end-user support is delayed at levels L2 and L3.
The support from SonicWall was excellent.
SonicWall support is very helpful and responsive.
 

Scalability Issues

Sentiment score
7.0
Fortinet FortiGate offers scalable, adaptable solutions for varied business sizes, despite some hardware limitations in large deployments.
Sentiment score
8.1
Fortinet FortiGate-VM offers scalable and efficient performance in virtual environments, with flexibility and enhanced capacity compared to hardware.
Sentiment score
6.7
SonicWall NSa scalability is largely praised, with adaptability depending on model and workload expectations, requiring potential upgrades.
They scale up really well from smaller models like the FortiGate 40 and 50 to bigger sites with the FortiGate 100 for more throughput - up to enterprise datacenters.
The variation comes in terms of the interfaces and throughputs, but from a security perspective, you get the same benefit, irrespective of whether you have an entry-level unit or an enterprise.
We determine sizing based on multiple factors: number of users, available links, traffic types, server count, services in use, and whether services will be published.
Scalability is well-supported, with the notable ability to implement features easily.
It can start with a single core and scale up to a 32-core license for a robust deployment.
We currently have a little over 2,000 users working with Fortinet FortiGate in our environment.
I would rate its scalability around eight out of ten, meaning there are no issues, and it is pretty easy to scale.
Regarding scalability, it's important to ascertain the customer's future requirements, as firewalls need to be sized according to their expected scalability, such as moving from 500 users today to more in the coming years.
 

Stability Issues

Sentiment score
7.4
Fortinet FortiGate is stable and reliable with updates addressing high CPU usage, memory constraints, and firmware bugs efficiently.
Sentiment score
7.9
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is generally reliable, with occasional stability issues that improve with proper sizing, configuration, and updates.
Sentiment score
8.4
SonicWall NSa is stable and reliable, with occasional VPN, performance, and latency issues resolved through updates and high availability.
We're experiencing 99.999% availability consistently.
I would rate the stability of Fortinet FortiGate a ten out of ten.
Currently, we are experiencing a general outage of one of the main internet service providers of the Dominican Republic, and we have not been impacted in our operations because with SD-WAN, we have another internet service provider and we are working with the second WAN connection without any disruption.
The product has been very stable, based on my ten to eleven years of experience.
In the past couple of years, they started releasing numerous new features, and things have become somewhat unstable.
The traffic is stable and seamless.
The stability of SonicWall NSA is quite good.
 

Room For Improvement

Fortinet FortiGate needs interface improvements, better bandwidth management, enhanced reporting, consistent performance, and streamlined support, licensing, and cloud integration.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM requires improvements in UI, stability, support, pricing, cloud integration, analytics, and user-friendly management.
SonicWall NSa's complex interface and inadequate features hinder usability, leading to delays and inefficiencies in management and troubleshooting.
Investing in a solution that can accommodate such growth would be more cost-effective than repeatedly purchasing new hardware.
While Fortinet claims to offer a comprehensive network solution, it falls short in addressing computer application issues, particularly server security.
When considering Sophos XG, which we also use, the logging and reporting functionality is notably more efficient.
The constant daily revisions necessitate meticulous identification of the relevant documents to prevent the use of outdated information that could jeopardize our environment.
I am concerned about Fortinet's ability to help us meet regulatory compliance because its optimal functionality requires deploying all solutions within the mesh as Fortinet products.
The API needs better integration to match accounts and objects more effectively.
More details in the analytical tools offered would be appreciated since it is not yet mature.
There are some aspects of the dashboard configuration or customization that could be improved.
 

Setup Cost

Fortinet FortiGate offers flexible, competitively priced solutions with excellent price-performance ratio compared to Cisco and Palo Alto.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM is competitively priced, with flexible licensing, though costs can rise with scaling and advanced features.
SonicWall NSa is cost-effective for enterprises with competitive pricing, appealing licensing, and potential savings on maintenance.
Last year, I renewed the support for three years, which can sometimes be expensive but depends on the security benefits and how it helps us.
It is about 20% cheaper.
The advantages of Fortinet FortiGate over its competitors include good pricing and meeting our requirements at a lower cost.
FortiGate is priced lower than Palo Alto.
The license for Fortinet FortiGate-VM costs 100K to 150K Philippine pesos per year for VM1 or VM2.
They could be slightly cheaper, however, Fortinet offers a good cost-benefit ratio.
SonicWall is much cheaper compared to Fortinet, particularly regarding renewal and licensing costs.
I would rate the price of the product as seven out of ten.
 

Valuable Features

Fortinet FortiGate is valued for its diverse features, cost-efficiency, and scalability, offering comprehensive network protection and easy management.
Fortinet FortiGate-VM provides robust security, easy management, seamless integration, flexibility, and cost-effective protection with comprehensive features and control.
SonicWall NSa provides comprehensive network security with deep packet inspection, UTM features, scalability, and user-friendly management for businesses.
In terms of security, we have not experienced any security flaws or loopholes, and it has proven to be quite stable.
FortiGate has helped reduce the risk of cyberattacks that might disrupt our client's production.
These features help reduce our downtime, manage the ISPs, and deploy SLAs for all the website traffic.
The more integrated we become, the less we spend on solving bugs and issues, allowing us to reduce time focusing on understanding and improving our network.
Fortinet is the only provider to have successfully set up a unified operating system on all its products in the network security ecosystem.
I appreciate FortiGate's flexibility, which allows for centralized management through FortiManager.
Real-time deep memory inspection is very helpful and has had a positive impact on our security posture.
SonicWall NSA's most valuable features are its SD-WAN and a system RTBI that blocks all attacks.
 

Categories and Ranking

Fortinet FortiGate
Sponsored
Ranking in Firewalls
1st
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.9
Number of Reviews
409
Ranking in other categories
Software Defined WAN (SD-WAN) Solutions (1st), WAN Edge (1st)
Fortinet FortiGate-VM
Ranking in Firewalls
9th
Average Rating
8.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.4
Number of Reviews
131
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
SonicWall NSa
Ranking in Firewalls
16th
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
7.0
Number of Reviews
88
Ranking in other categories
No ranking in other categories
 

Mindshare comparison

As of September 2025, in the Firewalls category, the mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate is 20.1%, up from 18.4% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of Fortinet FortiGate-VM is 1.8%, up from 1.5% compared to the previous year. The mindshare of SonicWall NSa is 1.7%, up from 1.4% compared to the previous year. It is calculated based on PeerSpot user engagement data.
Firewalls Market Share Distribution
ProductMarket Share (%)
Fortinet FortiGate20.1%
Fortinet FortiGate-VM1.8%
SonicWall NSa1.7%
Other76.4%
Firewalls
 

Featured Reviews

Vasu Gala - PeerSpot reviewer
A stable solution with an intuitive interface and quick customer service
I have been working with Fortinet FortiGate, WatchGuard, Sophos, and SonicWall. I'm not as comfortable with SonicWall because of their UI and limitations. I prefer Fortinet above all other options. When it comes to configuration, I am confident in my ability to handle various tasks, including creating policies such as firewall rules, web policies, and application policies. Additionally, I can configure VPNs and implement load balancing, among other tasks. Overall, I feel much more comfortable working with Fortinet. Fortinet has made significant improvements by integrating AI with firewalls for threat analysis and prevention. In the past 2-3 years, they have launched FortiSASE and SIEM, and they also provide SOC services. Both Palo Alto and Fortinet FortiGate are excellent. While Fortinet FortiGate comes at higher prices, the functionality and support justify the cost. They promptly resolve firmware issues and inform all support providers about configuration changes.
Khushru_Mistry - PeerSpot reviewer
Simple to use and does a wonderful job in protecting enterprises
At this moment, we believe that Fortinet FortiGate should be improved by injecting more AI because the kind of threats we are seeing are more ransomware threats. Fortinet FortiGate is able to ensure these threats do not enter, but we would prefer to see more proactive alerting mechanisms come out.
Constantnos Achilleos - PeerSpot reviewer
Network security has strengthened with next-generation firewall features and cost savings
I primarily use SonicWall NSA as a next-generation firewall for network security architecture. It is especially used for securing business operations with networks of more than 250 people SonicWall NSA's most valuable features are its SD-WAN and a system RTBI that blocks all attacks. These…
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Computer Software Company
16%
Comms Service Provider
9%
Manufacturing Company
7%
Financial Services Firm
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
Comms Service Provider
7%
Financial Services Firm
7%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
13%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Educational Organization
7%
Comms Service Provider
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business260
Midsize Enterprise99
Large Enterprise143
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business68
Midsize Enterprise29
Large Enterprise33
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business54
Midsize Enterprise21
Large Enterprise24
 

Questions from the Community

Which is the better NGFW: Fortinet Fortigate or Cisco Firepower?
When you compare these firewalls you can identify them with different features, advantages, practices and usage a...
What is the biggest difference between Sophos XG and FortiGate?
From my experience regarding both the Sophos and FortiGate firewalls, I personally would rather use FortiGate. I know...
What are the biggest technical differences between Sophos UTM and Fortinet FortiGate?
As a solution, Sophos UTM offers a lot of functionality, it scales well, and the stability and performance are quite ...
Features comparison between Palo Alto and Fortinet firewalls
In the best tradition of these questions, Feature-wise both are quite similar, but each has things it's better at, it...
Which would you recommend - FortiGate VM or Azure Firewall?
Both of these solutions are excellent options that provide flexible scalability and solid security. Fortinet Fortigat...
What do you like most about Fortinet FortiGate-VM?
An enhanced security solution for any kind of alert that we have configured.
What do you like most about SonicWall NSa?
The product blocks access when I visit unrecognized websites.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for SonicWall NSa?
I would rate the price of the product as seven out of ten.
What needs improvement with SonicWall NSa?
I have not really seen any problems with SonicWall NSa on the technical front, but the quality of support is not that...
 

Also Known As

FortiGate 60b, FortiGate 60c, FortiGate 80c, FortiGate 50b, FortiGate 200b, FortiGate 110c, FortiGate, Fortinet Firewall
FortiGate Virtual Appliance, FortiGate-VM
NSA 250M, NSA 2600, NSA 3600, NSA 4600, NSA 5600, Dell SonicWALL NSA
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Amazon Web Services, Microsoft, IBM, Cisco, Dell, HP, Oracle, Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, Sprint, Vodafone, Orange, BT Group, Telstra, Deutsche Telekom, Comcast, Time Warner Cable, CenturyLink, NTT Communications, Tata Communications, SoftBank, China Mobile, Singtel, Telus, Rogers Communications, Bell Canada, Telkom Indonesia, Telkom South Africa, Telmex, Telia Company, Telkom Kenya
Security7 Networks, COOPENAE
Orange County Rescue Mission, First Source, Michaels & Taylor, Green Clinic Health System, Aspire Chiltern Skills and Enterprise Centre, UnitedStack, Faith Lutheran College Redlands, Celtic Manor Resort, Star Kay White, Air Works, Unimat Life, NHS Yorkshire and Humber Commissioning Support (YHCS), Hutt City Council, Mato Grosso do Sul, Nspyre
Find out what your peers are saying about Fortinet FortiGate-VM vs. SonicWall NSa and other solutions. Updated: July 2025.
866,483 professionals have used our research since 2012.